European Films

Italian director Cristina Comencini is currently working on Bianco e nero (Black and White), the follow-up to her Oscar-nominated drama La bestia nel cuore / Don't Tell. The film is set in the Italian capital and stars Fabio Volo (La febbre) as a married man who falls in love with a beautiful African lady (Aïssa Maïga, from Caché, Bamako) who is also married. Ambra Angiolini, the revelation from Ozpetek's Saturno contro, a turn that won her both the David di Donatello and the Nastro d'Argento, plays Volo's wife, a cultural worker with a passion for Africa. Maïga's character is the wife of one of Angiolini's African colleagues, played by Eriq Ebouaney.

The writer-director has said in Italian daily Repubblica that the film is a comedy "rife with clichés" but on both sides: both the well-off Italian couple and the well-off African couple are in for some surprises. "There will be no concessions to political correctness," the director stated.

Comencini is the daughter of the late Italian director Luigi Comencini and the sister of both writer-director Francesca Comencini (A casa nostra / Our Country) and production designer Paola Comencini. The latter regularly works with both sisters and also worked on Bianco e nero. Fabio Cianchetti again handles cinematography, his fourth collaboration with the director.

The film's screenplay was written by the director with her daughter Giulia Calenda and with Maddalena Ravagli. Comencini is also an acclaimed novelist -- her La bestia nel cuore was originally published as a novel and only later became a film -- and her latest novel will be published in September. Bianco and nero will be released in Italy in January.

(sources: La repubblica, cinecittà news, photo: Ambra Angiolini in Saturno contro, (c) R&C Produzioni)